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As previously foreshadowed and discussed in depth, October 1, 2016, marked the date in which unsuccessful offerors lost the ability to challenge most task order awards issued by civilian agencies.

Although the GAO remains able to hear protests relating to DoD task orders exceeding $10 million, two recent GAO decisions impose an important limitation: GAO does not have jurisdiction to consider awards issued by DoD under a multiple-award contract operated by a civilian agency.

Joint venture partner or subcontractor? An offeror’s teaming agreement for the CIO-SP3 GWAC wasn’t clear about which tasks would be performed by joint venture partners and which would be performed by subcontractors–and the agency was within its discretion to eliminate the offeror as a result.

A recent GAO bid protest decision demonstrates that when a solicitation calls for information about teaming relationships, it is important to clearly establish which type of teaming relationship the offeror intends to establish, and draft the teaming agreement and proposal accordingly.

A solicitation’s evaluation criteria are tremendously important. Not only must offerors understand and comply with those criteria in order to have a chance at being awarded the contract, but the agency must abide by them too. Where an agency does not, it risks that a protest challenging the application of an unstated evaluation criteria will be sustained.

When an agency performs a cost realism evaluation under a solicitation involving significant labor costs, the agency must evaluate offerors’ proposed rates of employee compensation, not just offerors’ fully burdened labor rates.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that an agency erred by basing its realism evaluation on offerors’ fully burdened labor rates, without considering whether the direct rates of compensation were sufficient to recruit and retain qualified personnel.

The GAO’s jurisdiction to hear most protests in connection with task and delivery order awards under civilian multiple award IDIQs has expired.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO confirmed that it no longer has jurisdiction to hear protests in connection with civilian task and delivery order awards valued over $10 million because the underlying statutory authority expired on September 30, 2016.

An offeror’s proposal to hire incumbent personnel–but pay those personnel less than they are earning under the incumbent contract–presents an “obvious” price realism concern that an agency must address when price realism is a component of the evaluation.

In a bid protest decision, the GAO held that an agency’s price realism evaluation was inadequate where the agency failed to address the awardee’s proposal to hire incumbent personnel at discounted rates.

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